I really enjoyed this blog by Andy Maslen of Sunfish. He writes …
Last month I was delivering a training course in London. I stayed at the Hilton in Docklands. Because I stay in town at least once a month I joined their “frequent flyer” programme: Hilton Honors.
When I booked my room for this latest trip I was delighted to see that as a Hilton Honors member I was eligible for a Custom Upgrade. I could choose from three different upgrades, all involving bigger rooms with better views and even balconies. But guess what?
These upgrades come with a price tag. Not huge, I admit, but a price tag nevertheless.
Hilton is doing something clever. They are upselling you just after the point of purchase, which a pretty good time to do it. And they are packaging their selling process as a membership privilege. And it works.
A different example, from a different industry – magazine publishing – is the Automatic Membership Renewal Programme.
This really means that the publisher will continue to charge your credit card each year for another subscription period until you tell them to cancel. The technical name for this perfectly legal mechanism is continuous credit card authority – and it resembles Direct Debit.
Membership programme
But there’s not a great deal of mileage from a sales perspective in telling your customer you’re going to raid their credit card account every year. So you package it up as a “membership programme”.
Now, what do we know about human beings? That’s right. They are herd animals. So they like joining things.
In fact, both the above examples do confer benefits on the customer. In the case of the room upgrade at the Hilton, you get a better room for a nominal fee – so you are effectively saving money and getting a more comfortable, relaxing stay.
In the case of the magazine publishers (or the ones smart enough to do it) they are removing admin from the customer’s life and not even charging anything for this service.
So my question to you is this.
Is there an aspect of your product or service offering that would make a big difference to your bottom line if more of your customers took it up? Do they have objections to doing so? Can you repackage this valuable but tricky aspect of your offer to make it seem like an additional benefit to your customers?
OK, that was three questions. But they’re worth asking. And answering. Oh, and by the way, the answer is purely copywriting. You don’t need to re-engineer the product offering – it’s all already there. This is purely about words.
And I’m telling you this because
In business, as in life generally, it’s never a good idea to leave money lying on the table. If you are facing customer resistance to an idea that could make you more money and help them out in the process, all you need to do is sell it a bit better.
People love upgrades, membership privileges and the rest. So put your thinking cap on and get writing.
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